Chapter Two, Part Eight: The Three “Basic” Laws of Logic and How They Affect Reasoning

The three basic laws of logic are:
. The Law of Identity.
. The Law of Non-Contradiction.
. The Law of Excluded Middle.

The law of identity institutionalizes the prevailing theory of nature stating that every member of a class, say class X, has the same nature as every other member of that class. From this we can conclude that every member of that class is, by nature, X, and only X. In symbolic terms, this simply means that X is X.

As obvious as X is X may appear, its consequences are not. The law of identity justifies generalizations, and therefore, the concept that reasoning in terms of absolutes and certainty is logical. If everyone agrees that X is X and only X, it is reasonable to generalize, and be absolutely certain, that every X is X.

Kabbalah.info is the largest source of authentic Kabbalah wisdom available on the internet. It provides more than one million unique visitors per month with an encyclopedic variety of authentic Kabbalah content in 26 languages. Over seventy percent of the traffic originates in the US and Canada.

Rav Michael Laitman, Professor of Ontology and Theory of Knowledge, PhD in Philosophy and Kabbalah, and MSc in Medical Bio-Cybernetics, established Bnei Baruch in 1991, following the passing of his teacher, Rav Baruch Shalom HaLevi Ashlag (The Rabash). Rav Laitman

We are not born with culture, we create it. We have not found solutions for problems that have haunted civilization since its birth because we have looked for those solutions in the same consciousness which created the problems. To solve our problems, we need to be conscious of them in truly new ways.

There have been those thinkers who have argued that our judgmental way of reasoning is a major cause of our moral crisis. Some critics have gone even further and pointed out that judgmental reasoning is the consequence of the character of the laws of the very logic we use in our thinking. Just as mathematical laws determine mathematical answers, so too, do laws of logic determine what we take to be reasonable answers. Let us see how our laws of logic lie at the root of our moral crisis by first examining what justifies them.

We need for the world to be different. We cannot go on as we have been. Reasoning which divides the world into opposing camps leads to hatred and fighting throughout the world, from internal conflicts between religious groups, as in Ireland and Bosnia, to tribal genocide in Rwanda. The attitude of us-versus-them is responsible for bombing in the streets and airports, the downing of airplanes, and the killing and injuring of people at the Olympics. 911 is also the consequence of this reasoning, and so is our response to it. Whether it be crime in our streets or war between nations, we cannot continue down this path to destruction. Social conditions may be approaching a critical threshold.

In this landmark TEDx talk published in 2017, Peter Diamandis discusses the human-scale transformation driving our evolutionary next step into “Meta-Intelligence.” In our highly connected future – we will more easily share thoughts, knowledge and actions. Peter explains the four driving forces and four steps transforming humanity.

Named one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders by Fortune Magazine in 2014, Peter is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions.

Lovers understand the limitations of either/or categories to express what their hearts know and their emotions and feelings desire to convey. It is not true that lovers are either one with their beloved or separate from them. Lovers feel both “one” with their beloved, and yet they know, too, that each is a separate individual. Christians claim that we are “one in Christ,” and mystics assert that we are “one in God,” yet we obviously have separate physical bodies occupying distinct and unique places in space and time.

Logic, as we now know it, is unfinished. Traditional logic is well suited to science, but not humanity. Three centuries before Christ, the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) and the Indian philosopher Gautama formalized systems of logic that, before them, were taken for granted as logical ways to relate ideas. To this day, we use those systems of logic as standards for correctly relating ideas/reasoning. Whether we are aware of them or not, like laws of grammar that act as standards of communicating, Aristotle’s and Gautama’s laws of logic act as standards of what is considered reasonable and what is not—globally. But what is reasonable is not always moral in every situation.

Our logical laws lead us to think that one alternative must be superior to all others: let us call this hierarchical thinking. Logic leads us to conclude that if one alternative is right, then all the others must be wrong: let us refer to this as drawing either/or conclusions. Finally, our logic directs us to conclude that one alternative must be the best, indeed, for everyone: let’s call this judgmental reasoning or hard logic. Hierarchical, judgmental, either/or conclusions are incompatible with nonjudgmental values of acceptance, tolerance, non-discrimination, and love.

An additional system of logical laws could enable us to reason in a complementary way and so arrive at non-judgmental conclusions which would support those values which are required for any ethical social order.

Overview.
Would Jesus recognize his teachings in traditional accounts of his ministry and why should anyone but Christians even care? Jesus would recognize some of his teachings in traditional accounts of his life. He would, however, be heartsick because he stood for something that is utterly missing in those accounts.

What is missing in records of Jesus’ teachings is fundamentally important to everyone-Christian or not. Jesus revealed a natural principle that justifies a nonjudgmental system of logic that goes hand in hand with our present judgmental system. Today contemporary physics documents the truth of that principle and the necessity of expanding our present system to include non-judgmental logic. Limited to our present system of logic, we will remain predisposed forever to reason judgmentally, when in spirit, we know this is wrong. When we learn Jesus’ nonjudgmental logic, we elevate our reasoning mind to the same level as our spiritual thoughts. This harmonizes our reasoning with our spirit. This is the key to higher consciousness and “doing on earth as it is in heaven”, just as Jesus said we could. (Matt 2:10)

A Rabbi (Deborah Schuldenfrei), a Pastor (Toure Roberts) and an Imam (Jihad Turk) walk into a bar… or in this case, a diner. The subject of their conversation is “The Story of God” – the new National Geographic Channel series starring Morgan Freeman – and the big question, “Who is God?” Here are some of the answers they offer in this promo for the series, released last week.